one Frederic Chilton, now a practising lawyer in the city of
Philadelphia, I would, if conscience permitted, repay your frankness
by evasion of a disagreeable truth. But in the circumstances which
induced your appeal, I have no option. Hesitation or concealment
would be unkind and dishonorable. I knew the man you speak of
well--I may say intimately, while we were fellow-students in the----
law school, in 18--. He was then--what I have but too much reason
for believing him at this day--a plausible, unprincipled man of
pleasure. Our intercourse, which commenced at the card-table,
terminated with a severe horsewhipping I administered to him in
punishment of an offence offered a married lady--a relative of my
own. Taking advantage of the protracted absence of her husband, who
was a naval officer, he offered her many attentions, received by
herself as tokens of innocent and friendly regard, until he forgot
himself so far as to make her open and insulting proposals, even
urging her to consent to an elopement, and threatening, in the event
of her refusal, to ruin her by infamous calumnies. Her father was
infirm; her husband in a foreign land. His base persecution would
have met with no chastisement, had not I espoused the terrified
woman's cause. These are the bare facts of the case. He merited a
flogging--as you, a chivalric Virginian, will admit. I--a Northern
man, with cooler blood, but I hope, as true a sense of honor and
right as your own--inflicted this, as I am prepared to testify
before any number of witnesses.'"

[Mabel was reading very fast, her eyes hurrying from side to side of
the page, her face blanching, and her hands more numb with every
word.]

"The above is a verbatim copy of that portion of my friend's letter